Doctor Who Unbound - A Touch of Bilis
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Bilis is nearly ready to implement his master's plans for freedom... but when he receives a visitor whom he knows and fears it will be too late. (Full Fathom Five universe)


Disclaimer - I don't own either Doctor Who nor Torchwood.

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The Doctor in this one-shot is the alternate Doctor played by David Collings from the Big Finish audio drama "Full Fathom Five," where the Doctor believed the ends justified the means, especially murder if he believed that the individual was too dangerous to be left alive, and this also extended to innocent people who were simply caught out in the wrong place at the wrong time.

* * *

A Touch of Bilis.

_If there's one thing I should know by now, its that time travel comes in many forms,_ the Doctor thought to himself as he walked down the arcade to a particular shop in Cardiff; the Rift that was slotted neatly in the city on a different dimensional level had so many interesting and fascinating qualities, like how it was bringing technology from different points of the universe and dumping it on Earth. But he had to admit, as a prison, it was practically perfect.

While he was curious about the existence of Abaddon- he had reviewed the Time Lord records which were an integral part of every TARDIS, but knowledge of that part of history was so murky that even the Time Lords hadn't managed to penetrate it - the Doctor had no idea how the creature had managed to impart the ability of time travel to an ordinary human, allowing him to move freely without any kind of technology, though there were catches.

_This was one of the reasons why the Time Lords had come up with the Symbiotic nuclei, _the Doctor thought to himself, _not only did it help them bond with their TARDISes, but it also prevented beings from taking them as servants. _

With that in mind, the Doctor felt genuine sympathy for the human because he hadn't had a choice since Abaddon had given him the abilities to freely travel through and space and actually see moments of the future, but he did not let that same sympathy cloud his mind.

The Doctor shook his head slightly at the name of the shop Bilis Manger owned, _At Stitch in Time. _The Doctor honestly had no idea if the time-travelling human had a sense of humorous irony, or if he just chose the name because it sounded good. He pushed open the door, ignoring the sound of the bell as it rang as his eyes caught sight of the clocks on the walls. The Doctor went up and studied the collection before he sniffed the air. Immediately he frowned.

Thanks to the work he had done on the TARDIS over the centuries after the mess in his second incarnation had left him stranded on Earth for a spell in his third incarnation, the Doctor knew that he had arrived in 2007, a few weeks before Bilis Manger manipulated the Torchwood Three team with opening the Rift by ensuring a few of their number travelled into the past a few days previously by sending them back in the first place.

The Time Lord had done his research and he had found this was the best time to deal with Bilis to deal with before he did too much damage to the Rift to release Abaddon.

But while time felt normal out there, out of the shop, it felt strange here. The Doctor had no idea if it was something to do with Billis, what he was doing to the Rift or the relationship the human had with the Rift itself. The Doctor was however aware the human time traveller here was 'drilling' into the Rift to allow the plan he and his master had come up with to help them.

Suddenly he realised there was someone behind him. The Doctor stiffened. "I was just admiring your collection of clocks," he said conversationally while he turned around, knowing who he'd find. "I have to admit, its a good business model; travel back into the past, take clocks out of time zones where they would most likely be destroyed," he pointed at a particular clock and tapped it gently, "especially this one; you took it off of the Titanic."

The Doctor turned around and found a physically older man with thinning hair and a gaunt face wearing a suit best suited to a Victorian novel, holding a clock. "We have to make a living, Doctor," the man said in a low voice.

"You know who I am?" the Doctor asked, not really surprised; there were, of course, a dozen ways Bilis could have known who he was, but he wasn't going to bother figuring out which one.

"Of course," the human time traveller said, looking at him with a puzzled expression. "I have heard a great deal about you, Doctor, I have even seen…a difference in you. From what I have learnt, you have become more….forceful in the way you do things."

"Things have changed," the Doctor replied shortly, trying to not dwell on the way he had changed; ever since the Time War, when he had begun taking increasing steps to ensure victory against the Daleks, resulting in high losses of life though they had taken millions of Daleks with them, his resultant regeneration had taken that philosophy a few steps further. But this was not the time to think about that dark period of his life, and he had no intention of letting this….man bring it up.

As he studied Bilis, the Doctor wasn't really surprised when he saw just how _wrong _Bilis was. He was like a ghost to the Doctor's time-sensitive sight, but the Time Lord had no problem there. There were a few tricks up his sleeve which Bilis probably did not know about, though his knowledge about the Time Lords was actually rather basic he probably didn't know all of it.

Bilis gave the Doctor a thin smile. "I think I know why you are here," he said with the air of a man who knew he was right and didn't really care who knew it, "You are aware of the plans to release my master. You are here to make sure it doesn't happen, aren't you?"

The Doctor was amazed by the brazen attitude, at the same time he had no trouble batting away attempts by another mind trying to invade his own. "Yes," he replied bluntly. "I know you are currently, to use the term, drilling into the Cardiff Rift. I know if you release that _thing _contained within the Rift, it will cause untold amounts of damage. I cannot let that happen."

Bilis' smile became a sneer. "Who are you to determine that? Would you deny a prisoner his freedom?"

"That depends on what that prisoner did, Bilis; I've encountered prisoners who committed mass genocide while others did nothing more than leave the light on. I don't care what you think of my motives, I am going to deal with you since you are using your abilities to create a crack in the Rift to send the Torchwood Three team through to the past, allowing you to manipulate the rest of the team into opening the Rift and make it easier for Abaddon to return," the Doctor replied, reassured by the blaster he was carrying in his pocket.

Bilis offered a mocking laugh complete with a mocking hand clap. "You will never succeed, Doctor. Why, I can do things you cannot, not without your TARDIS. I can go….anywhen, just like that!" he clicked his fingers.

Nothing happened, or at least that would be the impression any non-time-sensitive would have had. To a non-time-sensitive, they would have just seen two old men in the grips of a minor argument, while one of the men would have clicked his fingers only for nothing to happen. But to a time-sensitive, they would have seen a build-up of temporal energy only for it to just fizzle out.

The Doctor chuckled while Bilis looked confused and even frightened. "I am a Time Lord, Bilis; you might know enough about me, but you don't know about my people. We had the power to prevent time travellers from travelling through time, as you've just found out. You are not going anywhere."

Bilis' arrogant demeanour changed and he became terrified. "What are you going to do to me?" he asked, his voice quavering.

The Doctor eyed him for a moment. "We'll come to that in a moment. Right now, I'm curious," he said while he looked around in the shop and decided that it wasn't a good idea to have this particular discussion here; someone could walk in any moment, and the Doctor did not want that to happen. "I think we should take this privately," he said, and he grabbed hold of Bilis's arm in a vice-like grip to make the former free-moving time traveller see he had no choice in the matter.

The Doctor took Bilis into the backroom of the shop, and as the Time Lord looked around the room, he couldn't help but feel he had just walked through time and was seeing these objects scattered together. It was a cross between a very small kitchenette and an office and a small living area where Bilis could relax. It was a very interesting backroom. The walls were painted a rich dark red. There was a collection of vinyl records sitting on top of a table straight from Medieval times. Next to it was a bookcase loaded down both with books, old VHS tapes, and some DVDs and CDs, while the television itself looked fairly modern while the VHS player and the DVD player both looked brand new as though Bilis had just picked them up the day before.

The sofa in front of the TV was essentially from the 21st century, but the lamp next to it was not. It came from the 1930-40s somewhere, it was hard to tell.

The kitchenette itself was just as much of a contrast as the rest of the room. The small gas stove looked like it came from the 1950s, the kettle looked like it came from the Victorian period, but the toaster was definitely from modern times. On top of the stove was a pizza, something which also contrasted with the rest of the picture the Doctor was getting.

Bilis was clearly a man who enjoyed going back through time and surrounding himself with various artefacts from whatever period he travelled to and then he added it to the collection as though he wanted to blend the different time periods together.

In a way, the human reminded the Doctor of his fellow renegade Time Lord the Monk. Like Bilis, the Monk had frequently travelled up and down the timeline, collecting one artefact after another and placing it in a collection within his own TARDIS, only the objects he had collected had been something that, if they had been left outside the TARDIS micro-universe, they would have been priceless.

The Doctor pushed those thoughts aside and he pushed Bilis onto the sofa while he took a seat. The human was practically curling in the corner of the sofa while he tried his level best to make himself appear as small as possible. The Doctor watched him. Bilis was terrified. He had just lost his powers to freely move through time, and he had no idea what was going to happen next though he probably knew the Time Lord in the same room was planning on killing him.

Bilis knew enough about the Doctor's reputation, especially in recent years. He knew that the Doctor had begun taking a more aggressive stance against those whom he fought, and considering what was going on with Cardiff, Bilis was right to be afraid.

The Doctor had no intention of killing Bilis, not just yet. He wanted to learn more about the other time traveller before he did anything. "When did Abaddon give you your powers?"

"You mean the powers you took away?"

The Doctor closed his eyes. "Don't fight against me, Bilis, Just answer the question."

Bilis sighed dramatically. "He gave them to me, in the 1800s. I was living in Cardiff at the time. I was able to perceive things already thanks to the Rift."

That made sense in the Doctor's mind. Many inhabitants living close to a temporal rift gained some degree of psychic awareness and even, in some cases, time sensitivity. "Why did he give you those powers?" he asked.

Bilis shrugged. "I never found out the reason," he replied, though the Doctor had no idea whether Bilis was even telling him the truth or not, it didn't matter, really. "In the end he made a deal with me, to let me see the future and the past, in return for which I would help him, though he never told me what that would entail; I didn't know that by saying yes, I was essentially becoming a servant."

The Doctor wasn't particularly surprised by the story since it made sense to him once he had listened and heard Bilis' account without needing the human to go into too much detail.

One of the fundamental things Time Lords learnt at the Academy was that anyone, any race, who wished to be a fully-fledged time-travelling society, needed to adjust themselves. Time travel made individuals vulnerable to transtemporal beings who lived outside of linear time itself, and those same beings would not think about using time travellers who wandered into their paths to try to force them into servitude.

Even Time Lords were vulnerable. It was for that reason novices were exposed to the Untempered Schism, from which they would see the whole of the Vortex to make them more time-sensitive. Young children on Gallifrey were already exposed to the energy of the Vortex early which made them better able to perceive things in a different temporal plane, but it was the Schism that made them fully time-sensitive. Once they had seen the Schism, they were given energy from the Eye of Harmony, and the Symbiotic nuclei later in their education.

Bilis was one of an unlucky number of people to have experienced the type of life the Time Lords wanted to avoid at all costs. Servitude to something powerful and most likely extremely dangerous.

"I have encountered time travellers who can move freely through time," the Doctor commented while he thought of the Tharils among others, "but I've never met a human who can do it. How did you manage to travel from one time to another?" he asked with genuine curiosity.

"Thinking of taking it up yourself, Doctor?" Bilis asked him, his expression pinched. He didn't like being reminded that now the Doctor was the only proper time traveller in the room, though he had considered himself being the true time traveller since he hadn't needed technology to do it for him.

The Doctor knew what Bilis was doing and he wasn't impressed. "Just tell me, Billis," he said with an edge to his voice.

Bilis, fortunately, caught the message. "Alright," Bilis hissed. "I can-could," he corrected himself in a sardonic manner though the Doctor could hear the anger beneath his tone, "perceive moments. I could see fragments of the future. I was able to see the past, the present, and little fragments of potential and possible futures. I was able to travel by thinking about where I wanted to go. While I had free movement in the past, for some reason I couldn't go into the future too far; I always felt it was because the future wasn't entirely set."

The Doctor knew that was not true. Yes, there were always events that shaped the future, but the long term timeline was in existence always. But listening to Bilis speak made the Doctor wonder if perhaps Abaddon had deliberately made the future almost inaccessible for some reason, maybe to help better control the human. That would make sense, but then why was at the moment eluding the Time Lord, but in the end, the Doctor simply decided it was better if he didn't find out.

"So, you were able to concentrate on a time zone you wished to go, and then you were there?" the Doctor asked while he filed the thoughts of Bilis' perceived limitations away.

"Precisely," the former time traveller replied in his quiet voice. "It used to be a matter analogous to walking from one room to another before _you _took it away from me."

"Sticks and stones will break my bones," the Doctor replied, waving a hand dismissively. "But you also have the ability to look into other peoples' minds telepathically, don't you? I felt your attempts to read my own mind earlier."

Billis looked unhappy at the reminder. "Yes," he admitted, "I do have the power to read minds."

"What else can you do?" the Doctor asked.

"I can implant illusions into other peoples' minds. Visions, if you will," Bilis explained shortly though there was a genuine unease about disclosing this particular aspect about his abilities, though his tone showing just how bored he was becoming with this entire discussion but was too frightened to move. "I could also create a perception filter without the need for any technology. But why are you so interested, Doctor?" he finally asked, momentarily surprising the Time Lord since he had wondered if Billis would get some of his bravery back at some stage. "You've taken my powers away, why are you so curious?"

"Just professional interest, Bilis," the Doctor replied once he had gotten his composure back. "It's just that many of my people often debated why, instead of just relying on our TARDISes, we shouldn't just alter ourselves so we could move freely through time and space, but I never liked the idea. I like travelling in a TARDIS. It gives me the same feeling of freedom much like a human who has a car."

"Ah, yes, that makes sense," Bilis commented once he saw the logic, "still…those TARDISes… they are crude, are they not? They don't give you the freedom, do they?"

"It's a matter of opinion," the Doctor agreed though he was annoyed by the slight against his TARDIS, "but my people saw them as self-contained mobile research laboratories. I'm old fashioned myself, I happen to like them, especially the one I've got."

While the Doctor had been speaking he had slipped the blaster he had prepared for this moment out of his pocket and pointed it at a back-peddling Bilis.

"Why do you have to kill me?" the human asked, visibly terrified although there was something in the former time traveller's eyes, something very much like relief that he would finally die. "I have no powers anymore. I can't use them to help free Abaddon."

"True enough," the Doctor agreed, "however your master may find a way of releasing the block I placed on your abilities, and you will try again."

That was certainly true enough. The Doctor had no idea just how powerful Abaddon was compared to a Time Lord, but he wasn't going to take the risk. Also, he was going to have to use the TARDIS to seal up the Rift where Abaddon was trapped to make sure the demonic entity couldn't break through the Rift with or without a servant to act as a linchpin.

At the same time, the sealing of the Rift would ensure the entity would not be able to find another servant, leaving it trapped in the Rift forever. The Torchwood Three team in the unaltered timeline should never have fallen into the Rift the way they had, but now they wouldn't in this altered timeline.

Bilis screamed as the Doctor raised the blaster, but it was cut short when Bilis was shot through both the heart and the chest and once in the head. It might have been considered overkill by many other people's standards, but the Doctor didn't care. He needed Bilis completely dead so then he could seal the Rift with the TARDIS.

As the Doctor reset the blaster to disintegrate the body, burning it down into atoms, he looked around the back room of the shop. He wondered what he was going to do with the shop and everything inside it. He decided to take the clocks away, though he had no intention of returning them to their own time and place, everything else could stay.

Without a word, the Doctor left the shop, leaving behind the atomic remains of Bilis Manger.


End file.
